Music is a highly popular media on the Internet or World Wide Web (WWW). For example, file-sharing software programs and systems such as Napster, iMesh and Gnutella enable users to share digital files containing their favorite music. Other Web sites enable users to listen to free musical selections and/or to purchase music which is of interest and/or to burn custom CDs (compact disks). In addition, an increasing number of musicians are turning to the Internet in order to promote their music, particularly musicians who are associated with independent labels or “indies”, who may not have access to the large commercial brick and mortar chains that sell music to the public.
The Internet is also a useful medium for the distribution of music in other forms, such as through Internet radio for example. Although Internet radio can simply involve the broadcasting of music and/or other types of audio data through the Internet, the medium also offers other possibilities that are not currently practicable through regular radio broadcasts. For example, in order to advantageously use the interactivity of the Internet, Internet radio “stations” could actually be tailored to the taste and preferences of individual users. Such “stations” could also then broadcast targeted advertising, as well as serving as a useful gauge of the musical tastes and preferences of consumers.
Although a tailored Internet radio “station” could simply broadcast music selected by the user, a more useful implementation would involve the prediction of the musical taste and/or preferences of the user, in order to provide a stream of musical selections that are unfamiliar to the user. These new musical selections would provide variety to the user, as well as exposing the user to new types of music and/or musicians, which the user might not otherwise hear. In order for such new musical selections to be correctly chosen and broadcast, the musical taste and preferences of the user must be accurately determined. Otherwise, the user might easily lose interest in the tailored radio “station”. Unfortunately, such an accurate method for predicting the musical taste and/or preferences of the user is not currently available.
Retail stores selling compact disks typically enable customers to listen to the disks before purchase. Recently, such stores have begun to install many listening stations on their premises, to which the customer brings a CD (compact disk) of interest for being played. The station may be able to read the bar code of the disk, which can provide valuable but general information about the interests of an aggregated group of customers. However, these stations cannot assist the customer to select a CD of interest.
Similarly, e-commerce sites selling musical content typically offer their customers a very large collection of items (CDs or audio files of various formats) to choose from. These vendors must provide search facilities to their customers, for enabling them to navigate in the collection and to find item(s) for purchase. However, currently only very rudimentary facilities are available for enabling customers to find music of interest, such that they may quickly become overwhelmed by the choices.